Word: donkin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Like Mr. Chips, old Charlie Donkin (Frederick Leister) is a housemaster at an English boarding school, adored by the boys for his crusty wisdom. Suddenly three frolicsome girls with their aunt come to live with him, turn everything arsy-versy. The high jinks soar highest when the three little minxes throw a midnight spread in their bedroom and ask a few of the boys to drop in. Right in the midst of their lark who should appear but old Donkin himself, mad as a hornet...
...beloved is Donkin that when the hateful new headmaster tries to oust him, the young folks start a B. U. D. C. (Back Up Donkin Club). Things get pretty tense. The headmaster abolishes the school regatta, and Donkin packs up to leave. Only in the nick of time is he reinstated, and the oldest minx marries the shy music instructor, Philip ("Poop"), who calls his baby grand piano "B. G." For the final curtain Donkin stands alone in his study listening to the boys ("Old Crump," "Bimbo," "Flossie," and their pals) singing Auld Lang Syne...
...young women are described as being completely without inhibitions and repressions, and although that may be a slight overstatement, they do manage to take a good deal of the monasticism out of the boarding school. They make their room the stamping-ground of a campaign to do something for Donkin, the housemaster. He is beginning to suffer for his unsuccessful resistance against the inhumanity of the grotesquely pious housemaster. The three young women start things off with a cocktail housewarming in the middle of the night, thus beginning a merry demoralization that almost results in the ruin of the worthy...
...Donkin, a senior housemaster at Marbledown School, was far from wearied by his long years of welldoing, asked nothing more of fate than another decade or so in harness. An excellent pedagog, he had his little weaknesses, such as the daily crossword puzzle in the Times, and his old-bachelor devotion to the faded girl's photograph on his mantelpiece. (She had married a dashing artist, mothered four children, died.) His boys were devoted to Mr. Donkin, but Marbledown's new Headmaster was not, considered him an old-fashioned obstructionist nearly ready for the pruning knife. All unaware...
When the Head overreached himself by abolishing the school's most cherished holiday, it was all Mr. Donkin could do to control his muttering minions. It was more than he could do when his feminine wards took a hand in the revolt. Triumphantly the Head proclaimed a check mate; sadly Mr. Donkin acknowledged it. prepared to quit the field like a man. At the last moment, by literary chicanery worthy of P. G. Wodehouse, the day was saved for everyone concerned...